Going to Guatemala for 3 days is clearly madness! We definitely got our planning wrong as we should have allowed more time here before going to South America. Unfortunately we stayed a bit too long in Mexico - on the Mayan Riviera stretch - waiting for Louise to join us in Belize and we could have done Belize in a week so had more time for Guatemala. But, if it wasn’t for the fact that we had pre-booked our flights - we needed to show the US immigrations folk that we had a journey out of States territory within 90 days [View Full Entry]

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Round of applause please! As of Thursday 17th July 2008, the Family Mixto Paxel now have a brand new home to live in! We finished off the house by adding the door, window, roof and painting the outside and inside, having finished off the floor the previous day. After leaving the office in the morning, our brilliant planning once again ensured that we had the door hanging off the back of the truck. On the way to Alotenango, and the site, we did get some excellent views of Fuego erupting but then swiftly put our cameras away as we passed through [View Full Entry]

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Antigua. Well I can't quite believe I've been in guatemala over a week. Antigua is so beautifull I am totaly in love with the city. It has history and amazing architecture. The streets are quaint and so pretty with multicoloured houses, mainly blue, red, yellow and white spanish style frontage. Then when you get a glimps behind an open door you can usually feast your eyes on a pretty courtyard garden behind the wooden front door. Even the buses here look pretty,painted all sorts of vibrant colours and they seem to be named...although I have unfortunately been warned not to [View Full Entry]

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Antigua! After our initial uncertainty about this town we have decided to stay a couple days. We'll pick up our tickets today and leave in the morning for Panajachel, on Lago Atitlan about 2.5 hours away. Lodging: We stayed at the Yellow House two nights ago and thought it was nice but not great. Lots of travelers obviously stay there and there is a small kitchen for use, a small breakfast is provided, but there are only two bathrooms for a lot of people. We decided to move on to one recommended in Lonely Planet, Posada Juma Ocag. It is a [View Full Entry]

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Antigua Today we wandered around town on our last full day in Antigua and visited a couple of the churches. The town was originally built in the 1500s but has suffered multiple earthquakes on a fairly regular basis so just about every historical building has been built, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed, and at some point left the way it was. We first went to the Catedral Santiago, off Parque Central. We went inside and then explored the ruins in the rear. The church must have been huge when built but you could see the damage as we strolled through the ruins. We [View Full Entry]

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Phew! !ve just completed 4 days of Spanish school! When in Rome...Antigua is reknown for its Spanish schools so I thought I'd try to learn something more than my dodgy French and vague Italian, courtesy of Italian Disc 1, 2 and 3 (thanks Martin) and hours of train journeys and lonely Italian meals for one! Imagine putting yourself in a position where you feel like an awkward adolescent, loosely translated as an absolute twat, where you cant run away and you have to keep going back! At my age I'm so ready for new and exciting things...really! But learning one on [View Full Entry]

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Psych! Like that would ever happen. I went on a tour set up by the school and at one of the stops a woman demonstrated an indigenous wedding ceremony. Since I was the only guy, I dressed as the groom and another student, Sarah from Ireland, dressed as the bride. It was very educational. Apparently it´s the custom that the marriages are arranged while they are babies or very young. And it's typical for them to marry at 15 years of age. It was lots of fun, but I think the sizes of their heads are much smaller than ours. That's [View Full Entry]

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Of course, this trip isn´t entirely about sitting in bars and drinking, although the carribbean is only a short flight away - idea! The main reason why I´m out here is to work with the organisation "Houses to Homes (casas a hogares)". They build houses for people living in little more than sugarcane shacks and who hardly have any form of income. For this reason, all they have to do is contact the organisation and they can get a house for free. They´re nothing fancy mind, but the concrete walls do make a hell of a difference, especially when we were [View Full Entry]

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Antigua homestay- Through the school, most students arrange a homestay which includes meals. My homestay has been great, although I was surprised when I first arrived on that Wednesday afternoon. When I filled out the application for the homestay online, I checked the box for "no children" and "no pets." Is there a difference? So, of course, my homestay mother, Sylvia, has a 15 year old son, Franchesco, and a "pretty little dog too" named Terry. Actually, neither has been a problem. And I wouldn´t trade the experience for anything. I would describe the family as working to lower middle class [View Full Entry]

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Well, here's entry number one in my travels. Arrived in Guatemala city airport after an 8 hour flight from Heathrow into JFK, and then, after a 6hr wait, finally left at 3am! Argh!!!! Believe me, that was knackering! Got into Guat City at 6am and the first things that you notice are *a) the brightly painted houses below *b) the sun breaking through the clouds as you're descend in a myriad of pastel colours and *c) the volcanos ringing the city - many are extinct and dormant but there are the odd couple that are smoking After landing, and meeting up [View Full Entry]

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